Excellent trick, Mike. My 83.5 Westy had the cylinder head syndrome.
I had no idea you could do the trick. The LED blinked as soon
as I drove it on to a freeway, or locally for a little longer.

The PO had the problem when the Westy was 30k miles young. He
sold it to me at 70k miles. He had driven it with the condition for
years before selling it to me. Well, he sold it to me with the
condition for $2500 in 1993. The problem was fixed eventually with 
a tear down and rebuild.

--- On Wed, 10/14/09, Mike Collum <collum@MYFAIRPOINT.NET> wrote:

> Years ago, I cracked the passenger side head, on my '84 7
> passenger, (a
> story in itself) during a trip from Maine to
> Virginia.� I continued the
> trip and the infusion of combustion gases into the coolant
> got worse.
> Before starting home (1200 miles) I found that I could
> loosen the
> radiator bleed screw and combustion gases (as well as some
> coolant)
> would escape without overpressurizing the system and
> without overheating
> the engine.� I could go 27 miles before the low
> coolant light would come
> on at which time I could top up the coolant and proceed
> without having
> to worry about an overheated engine.� Yeah, pulling
> over every 27 miles,
> during the winter, wasn't fun but it allowed me to get home
> without
> further damage where I could effect a proper repair at my
> leisure.
> 
> Granted, the light didn't indicate a "Sudden" coolant loss,
> but I found
> it most useful just the same.
> 
> Mike
>